AskWhisper vs Runnr.ai
The facts side by side, what each one costs tier by tier, and which of the two we'd pick. Both have been paid for and run at a working European hotel.
The short version
Both land on 6/10 overall, so the choice comes down to fit rather than our scores.
AskWhisper is built for small and mid-size European independents that want published per-room pricing, and properties that want the phone answered as well as the chat. Runnr.ai is built for hotels wanting WhatsApp-native guest communication with good integrations.
Which we'd pick
Runnr.ai if your PMS needs to hear back, AskWhisper if your phone needs answering.
Two young northern European tools that both publish pricing, which makes the comparison unusually clean. Runnr is €100 a month platform fee plus WhatsApp charges per conversation, so cost tracks message volume. AskWhisper is €7 per room per month plus €399 to start, so cost tracks room count. Below about fifteen rooms AskWhisper is cheaper; above that it depends entirely on how much your guests talk.
Runnr's standout is that conversation summaries flow back into PMS guest profiles, so the front desk can see what was discussed, and Thomas built a working CRM automation on the first attempt. AskWhisper has the broader published PMS list and the voice module. Both carry real gaps: Runnr has no revenue attribution, notifies by email rather than in-app, routes WhatsApp through an intermediary, and holds no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 of any kind, while one in five conversations still needs a human. AskWhisper meters its voice module without publishing the limit and supports only Salto for locks.
Drawn from our individual hands-on reviews rather than a fresh head-to-head test. Where a finding belongs to one of us, we've said whose it is.
| AskWhisper | Runnr.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rating | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Pricing | Published: communication suite €7/room/month (€21 minimum) plus €399 one-off setup; website €4, voice AI €2, digital keys €2 per room/month | Entry prices only, all stated as starting at: Pro from €100/month, Plus €200, Enterprise €400, with the per-unit rate unpublished; WhatsApp usage ~€0.75/room/month |
| Best for | Small and mid-size European independents that want published per-room pricing, and properties that want the phone answered as well as the chat | Hotels wanting WhatsApp-native guest communication with good integrations |
| HQ | Belgium (Leuven) | Netherlands (Utrecht) |
| Founded | 2024 | 2022 |
| Reviewed by | sophie | thomas |
What each one costs
AskWhisper pricing
- Communication suite €7/room/month, €21 minimum
- The core product: PMS connection, the AI assistant across WhatsApp, webchat and email, the branded chat, the knowledge base, the guest app and the automated messaging. At my 80 rooms that is €560 a month. The €21 minimum tells you who the entry tier is drawn for, because €21 at €7 a room is a three-room property.
- Setup fee €399 one-off
- Charged once, on top of the subscription. It buys the PMS connection and the knowledge base build, and in my case that work was done properly rather than handed to me as a form to fill in. Worth knowing it exists before you compare the monthly figure against anyone else's.
- Website €4/room/month, €49 minimum
- A managed site with the assistant built in, reading live rates from your PMS. Irrelevant to me, as it was with Amenitiz: an established hotel already has a website it has paid for. The €49 minimum puts this at about twelve rooms. Note that a custom domain is not included.
- Voice AI €2/room/month
- Answers the phone, in several languages, and routes to a human when it cannot cope. €160 a month at my size. Runnr.ai and Canary sell voice agents too, so this is not the rarity I first took it for, but it is priced openly here and it is the one place where the otherwise published pricing goes quiet: usage limits apply and the limits are not stated.
- Digital room keys €2/room/month
- Self-service check-in and contactless key delivery, through Salto. One lock vendor, so this is either exactly what you need or of no use to you whatsoever. Check your locks before you get attached to the idea.
This is the most transparent pricing in the category and it is still not the cheapest, which are two separate facts and both worth holding. Every rate is on the website with the minimums stated and no sales call in the way. But the structure is a la carte, and per-room add-ons stack: take everything and you are at €15 per room per month, which on my 80 rooms is €1,200 a month, or €14,400 a year, before the €399 setup. Take only the communication suite and it is €6,720 a year. The published headline of €7 is a real number, it is just the first of up to four. Do the arithmetic at your own room count and with only the modules you would actually switch on, because per-room pricing rewards a twenty-room property and punishes mine.
Runnr.ai pricing
- Pro From €100/month
- The entry tier, and the same €100 floor our review recorded, now with a name and two tiers above it.
- Plus From €200/month
- Marked as the most popular option on the pricing page.
- Enterprise From €400/month
- Top published tier.
- Groups and chains Custom
- Above 10,000 units, priced by arrangement.
- WhatsApp usage ~€0.75/room/month average
- Charged on top of the platform fee and stated as an average across conversation volume and guest location. More useful for budgeting than the per-conversation framing we recorded.
Runnr.ai has gone further in the right direction since our review. The €100 monthly floor is unchanged, but where we recorded a single starting price there are now three named tiers with figures attached, an average WhatsApp cost of about €0.75 per room per month rather than a vague per-conversation note, and a thirty-day trial on annual plans with setup and support included. Billing is per unit, and Runnr counts rooms, beds, apartments, cottages or camping pitches, which suits properties that are not shaped like hotels. Thomas credited Runnr for publishing anything at all when most rivals would not; it now publishes more than most.
Prices as last verified during each review. Hotel software pricing moves, and per-room rates behave very differently at 20 rooms and at 200, so run the arithmetic at your own room count. Full detail on AskWhisper pricing and Runnr.ai pricing.
Common questions
Which is better, AskWhisper or Runnr.ai?
Both score 6/10 on our ratings, so the right pick depends on what you are optimising for. Read both reviews.
How much do AskWhisper and Runnr.ai cost?
AskWhisper: Published: communication suite €7/room/month (€21 minimum) plus €399 one-off setup; website €4, voice AI €2, digital keys €2 per room/month
Runnr.ai: Entry prices only, all stated as starting at: Pro from €100/month, Plus €200, Enterprise €400, with the per-unit rate unpublished; WhatsApp usage ~€0.75/room/month
Read the full reviews
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AskWhisper
Every vendor in this category makes you book a call to find out what they cost. AskWhisper puts all four of its rates on the pricing page. I spent two months at my 80-room Amsterdam hotel finding out what those rates actually add up to, and whether a two-year-old Belgian company can carry them.
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Runnr.ai
Runnr.ai built their product around WhatsApp from day one instead of adding it later. The difference is visible in the API design, the message flow, and the integration quality. It's what I wished Quicktext had done.